a cathedral where you cannot breathe
by xshedreamsinredx
Summary: "Did you really think you could walk away from this unscathed? That I'd let you?" — She honestly can't stand it sometimes, how he can just waltz in, looking the part of a fixture, half belonging, half homecoming, and expect her to oblige. — Choi Young Do/ Rachel Yoo. Post series.


******Characters:** Choi Young Do/ Yoo Rachel, with mentions of Hyo Shin/Yoo Rachel**  
****Fandom:** The Heirs**  
****Rating:** Will go up to NC-17. Language and sexual references.  
**Author's note: **So, this is what happens when I stay up all night to watch youtube videos and cry over the au graphics on tumblr. This was meant to be a one-shot but I changed my mind till the time I reached the end because I was totally stalking through the tags and came across this graphic - post/80578178230 - by kingsoohyuk on tumblr and it largely inspired me to continue with the story. So.

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**a cathedral where you cannot breathe**

"You can't make homes out of human beings,  
someone should have already told you that."

.

.

.

The first time it happens, there is no real reason behind it, no given logic or hidden meaning or spilling feelings. She's not a bundle of conflicting impulses and he's not in love with her but that's okay, she is known for being a crazy bitch not stupid.

She doesn't make the same mistake twice. Doesn't confuse it for an accident when it's want against want or try to mix it up with fate when it's really just drunken clichés against a staggering lack of morals.

It happens.

He's there when Hyo Shin isn't and she's no longer his sister and it's just as good excuse as any to start something that is bound to end out of control.

—

"_I don't do this."_

She manages around a mouthful of gritted teeth when he is inside her, her throat is raw with the effort it takes to force down the scream that builds in the moment she feels herself stretch and tear against the unfamiliarity of his movements.

"I _can_ tell. You're just so fu-"

He breaks off abruptly, his voice catching the edge of remembrance and he is not doing this right anymore than she is. She feels panic flare briefly somewhere to the left of her chest before it eventually dies out in the darkness.

And then, it's just easy.

—

"_It's never going to happen again."_

She doesn't tell him in the morning because saying it out loud will make it more real than the ghost imprint of a flesh memory and she really needs it to mean anything but that.

—

The next time, it_ doesn't_ happen, he knocks over a vase while fumbling with her sweater in the dark, and she can't quite bite back her yelp fast enough when the shard cuts into her feet much like she can't help but flinch when the light hits her in eye.

"You're bleeding." He steps back to point out the obvious, unhelpfully, and she decidedly enough resents him for still being able to look at her when it's her blood across the floor and her sweater at his feet.

"_I'm fine_," she snaps, because it hurts and she is half-naked. Oh_, _and she is also a bitch.

Most days it's more of a fact than a weapon.

"And dandy," he continues with the linear non-thought, mockingly, and she doesn't even want to understand why he bothers, "I know."

He lets a sigh escape to fill the gap that her lack of words leave behind and drops down on his knees, in between the shattered glass and blood stains, to brace his fingers carefully against her bloodied feet. Her hand stretches out to grasp his shoulder for some semblance of fractured balance and it probably would have bothered her if she could actually think past the fog of blinding pain rattling her mind.

"Stay still." He looks up at her and she can't seem to look back at him.

It's absurd and foolish but mostly it's just his silence weighing down on her sanity and the feeling of being eighteen and much too old already.

—

They don't talk about it.

She doesn't avoid him in the hallway the next day or the day after that and he doesn't go out of his way to make it uncomfortable for her like he once would have. Maybe, it's something that comes hand in hand with being in love and being rejected by the said love.

She doesn't want to find out, either way.

—

She grows her bangs out in autumn.

It makes him go off page, for a whole second on their broken timeline, and reach out to finger the edges of the long strand, gingerly, like he can't help the impulse but tried to temper it in before surrendering to it seconds later. "You look different."

She slaps his hand away harshly. "Don't touch me."

He scoffs, loud enough for every passerby to hear, and she flushes because sometimes it takes as little as this to send her empire crumbling down, out in the broad daylight. "Well, if you insist."

"What is it that you want?" She hisses through her teeth and it's much like the time she'd barged in on him for help, except he has no bruise blooming along his cheekbone and it's not.

"Nothing," he exhales loudly and it burns because he had meant it to, "nothing from you."

—

Sometimes she calls him Kim Tan, and sometimes she calls him Hyo Shin and sometimes she can't hold on the her sanity long enough to string the letters together to form a proper name when he presses into her just so. Her inflections spill to pieces in the silence and he tries to punctuate each with his searching fingers and cutting breaths.

—

The end is much easier to follow than the start.

What happens isn't particularly special or tragic, what happens is unavoidable.

Lee Hyo Shin returns from the army with the most terrible buzz cut in the history of Korea, and a smile in the back pocket of his jeans and asks her if he still has a girl waiting on him.

There is a tremor in her voice when she speaks, something akin to guilt making inroads in her bloodstream and she thinks she can tell him _No, I'm sorry, I found someone_ or_ It's complicated, sunbae. _It would be just simple_. _He will accept it graciously and find himself another, much nicer girl and it could be just so, so much simpler.

("Yes," she smiles politely and tells him instead.)

—

_He never called her Eun Sang though._

She'll realize later when she'll let Lee Hyo Shin lean across from the table and press a flower in her hair.

And it will be a bit sad, that out of the two of them, he'll still be the better person.

—

"Hello sister," he says, over the mad din in the corridor like has so many times before, but it's different somehow. His consonants press into her skin a little harder than they did the first time, and she thinks he will never get them right again no matter how hard he tries to pluck them back in place.

_What is it that you want? _She doesn't ask because she hates repetition as much as she hates stupidity. "Yes?"

He's leaning back against her locker like it's more of a tradition and less of a bad habit, like it's a right he's fought for and earned and goddamnit, it's all just so incredibly -

"Did you believe it would be that easy?" He cuts to the chase, all sharp eyes and biting edges. His index finger flexes over his brow, out of familiarity, in a gesture she remembers cataloguing away as his personal brand of barely contained anger. "Did you really think you could walk away from _this_ unscathed? That I'd let you?"

"Move." She shoves at him, because she honestly can't stand it sometimes, how he can just waltz in, looking the part of a fixture, half belonging, half homecoming, and expect her to oblige.

"Don't. This isn't how it works," he warns lazily, inclining closer to catch a hold of her wrist with frightening ease, "talk to me when I'm talking to you."

"Stop it," she tugs at her wrist, he doesn't let go, "people are starting to watch."

"Look at me, Yoo Rachel," he demands, towering, "look at me. Do I give you the impression that I care?"

She _does_ look at him then.

Takes in the anticipation itching in his eyes, the arrogance in the slant of his mouth, the silent anger in the clench of his jaw and she finds it disturbing that it took that much time for realization to down.

"You're not here to talk, Choi Young Do. You're here to make war."

He grins.

.

.

.

**fin.**

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**End Notes:** Ah, I'm terribly sorry if this was confusing at times. It's just that it was supposed to end as a one-shot but it stretched out more due to an onslaught of plot bunnies. If there is anything I really loathe, it's OOC-ness. So I hope I didn't make you guys go through the same loathing. If you have got any suggestions or want to demand teasers or just want to talk/fangirl on a general basis, I'm available on tumblr at **staarked.**

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it half as much as I enjoyed writing it. I'd really appreciate it if you could take a few seconds out of your precious time and leave me a review. I'd love to know what you think.


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